Pros and Cons
by JavaForever
Summary: She thought she knew him until he jumped on a bus and headed off to California. Character study of Rory, placed around "Here Comes The Son". Companion to my other story, "Love Song". Read, enjoy, and please do review!


A/N: My return to fanfiction comes with a Literati. How surprising. It's sad, but sort of sweet, and hopefully it's Rory.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls. Wow, it's been ages since I've had the privilege of saying that!

Pros and Cons

She tosses and turns in her bed. It's 1 o'clock in the morning, but she can't sleep. He's invading her thoughts, breaking down the wall she so carefully constructed to keep him out. She gets up, walking slowly over to her desk. Sitting down, she rests her head in her hands and lets her mind wander.

No one here ever got to see that side of him. That sweet, protective, even romantic side. He came off as being so sarcastic, not to say that he wasn't. Most people didn't like him, but most people didn't know him the way she does. Or, did anyway. She thought she knew him until he jumped on a bus and headed off to California. He left behind a town full of people less than sorry to see him go, and one broken-hearted girl.

She misses him so much. He's tried to call. At least, she thinks he has. She's gotten calls where she answers, but there is no response. What would he even say to her? There are so many things he should explain. Why did he leave? What happened between him and Luke? Why was he angry at her at Kyle's party that night? Did he love her? Does he still? _Why_ did he leave?

She'd believed in him with all her heart. He was so smart, so talented. He had so much potential. She'd told him over and over. Didn't he believe her? Maybe he simply isn't worth this heartache. Mindlessly, she reaches for a piece of paper and starts to write.

She'll start with the cons. It's the easier thing to think about right now. _1. He's reckless._ He never thinks things through. He does whatever he wants without considering the consequences. And sometimes, he hurts people. _2. He's private_. He never talked to her about his problems. Occasionally, he'd complain about Luke, but he never really opened up to her. He never mentioned his life before coming to Stars Hollow, his mother, his father, his friends. It's as though they didn't exist. _3. He's jealous. _Whenever there was someone he considered a threat around, he became possessive and sometimes violent. _4. I don't trust him fully._ That was true. When he'd showed up at her Grandmother's house with the black eye, she'd just assumed he got in a fight with Dean. She didn't believe him when he said that he didn't.

Though she tries, she can't think of any more cons. It has come time for the pros column. _1. He's sweet. _He'd actually looked up the distance from Stars Hollow to Yale when she'd decided to go there. He wanted to know how often he could come to see her. He'd claimed that he was just bored, but she could tell from the way he smiled at her that he wasn't. _2. We have a lot in common._ This might sound like a minor thing when compared to all his cons, but it was important to her. The fact that he read the same books, listened to the same music, sometimes watched the same movies. It was like she'd told Paris a year ago. You need someone who's compatible, but not compatible. That was what he was for her. _3. He did things for me that he didn't like._ He was willing to take her to the Stars Hollow Prom, even going with Lane and Dave, despite his disdain for proms. She loved that about him. Which brings her to the last item in his pro column. _4. I love him. _She doesn't know if he still loves her. She doesn't know if he ever did, and chances are that she'll never find out. But she doesn't care about that. The truth is that she loves him, and that is all there is to it.

She looks over her list. Four items in each column. The four cons are certainly four good reasons not to be with him. Four good reasons not to love him. Her pros column has much flimsier and less important reasons to love him. They were things she might be able to find in another guy if she looked. Except for number four. She couldn't say that about just any guy. And so, even though there are four things looking up at her telling her to stop loving him, she's ignoring it. For the first time, she's ignoring the logic of her pro/cons list.

She quietly folds up the paper on her desk, and puts it in a box, never to be looked at again. She knows that if he ever asked her, she probably wouldn't admit to loving him, but it was something she needed to know. She puts the cap back on her pen, puts it in the jar where it goes, and climbs into bed. It's late and she's got school tomorrow. And as she falls asleep, her mind is blank, but as she dreams, she dreams of him.

The End.


End file.
